The Spiritual Edge

Credit Front Group

The Spiritual Edge is a multimedia project from KALW Public Radio exploring the shifting, dynamic nature of the American religious landscape. We seek the hot spots where change is occurring, including among immigrant groups, Christian communities, at the intersection between spirituality, religion and health, and in a growing DIY spiritual culture.

In the comments on our Nov. 21 story, "Some, None or Done: A Zen Atheist," listeners discussed whether Buddhism is theistic or non-theistic. We asked John Nelson, a scholar of religion who serves on The Spiritual Edge's academic advisory committee, to help us understand the issue:

One big trend in the US over the last few decades is that the country is becoming less religious. Far more people are categorizing themselves as Nones — people who say they don’t have a religious identity.

The KALW News team is looking for an experienced radio journalism story editor to work on a special project called The Spiritual Edge (TSE), exploring the innovative American spirit through the lens of spirituality and religion. This initiative, launched in 2014, will be directed toward building a national audience and launching a podcast with stories coming from KALW reporters and from around the country.

About 20 Muslim families are gathered on a hilltop outside the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, just after sunset. A water fountain bubbles, women and men chat, kids run around with snacks in their hands, and everyone at some point or another, looks up to the sky. They are moonsighting, scanning the sky for the new crescent moon that will signify the beginning of the month, Ramadan.

Three hours north of San Francisco, just east of the ocean, rise the steep, green hills of Cazadero. It’s an idyllic setting: open space with farms, a variety of oak trees, and an abundance of grasses.

A mixed flock of sheep and goats nibble on the plants in what is an almost Biblical scene. My guide and owner of these animals is named Starhawk. From our vantage point on the hill, we hear the chattering of birds. She points above us, to the trunk of a dead tree.

Living in a multi-cultural city yields all sorts of surprises. On a corner in Oakland just east of Lake Merritt, a small Buddha has helped bring neighbors together.

I didn’t know what to think the first time I saw the makeshift Vietnamese shrine. At the time, a few potted plants and flowers brightened up the corner. A piece of scrap metal protected the statue’s head. I had just moved to the neighborhood.

“Did someone die?” I asked a few women congregating in front of it. They shook their heads. One pointed to the sky and said, “Buddha. Pray.”

For many liberal Jews, it can be hard to imagine a time when a woman's role was mostly in the home. But it wasn't so long ago, only men could become rabbis. The feminist movement began to change that and in 1981, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb was one of the first women to be ordained. During her four decades leading congregations, she challenged old texts that don't make sense in a modern way. Today Gottlieb is pushing another agenda for Judaism--a path of nonviolence.

The Spiritual Edge is a new reporting project from KALW that explores innovation in religious belief and practice in the Bay Area. And as we plan the next stage of the project's development, we want your ideas and input.

By answering this brief survey, you'll discover the diverse stories that this project has already told, and help shape the future direction of The Spiritual Edge. Thank you!

Hypertension. Sixty-seven million Americans have been diagnosed with the condition, more commonly known as high blood pressure.

Before they hit age 50, hypertension is less common in women than in men. The female hormone estrogen likely serves as a kind of protection. But after 50, women’s rates of hypertension go up. That increases the risk of heart disease. And heart disease kills more women than anything else.

That’s how it went for Susan Evans. Her blood pressure changed with age.

Elizabeth Beltran-Larios struggled with her identity for much of her childhood. Beltran-Larios was born in Oakland, but she was raised in a small town south of Jalisco, Mexico. Growing up, she felt alienated from the Catholic church because of her sexual orientation. Her exposure to Buddhism in college helped her come to terms with who she is and what she believes. She sat down in the StoryCorps booth to share her story of this transformation.

Some people who take dance classes regularly have a saying: “Dance is my church.”

Dancer Stella Adelman says just that about going to Afro-Cuban folkloric dance class. “There’s a release to it,” she says. To her, it’s a place where she can reflect and find some clarity through movement. To some practitioners this clarity comes from being active and getting exercise, for others, it’s literally a spiritual practice.

The Bay Area is home to many instructors of Afro-Cuban rhythms. Music and dance lovers come from all over the world to participate in workshops taught by some of the most loved teachers and dancers from the Cuban Diaspora. Many of them have found home here.

Growing up, BJ Miller understood what it meant to live with a disability. His mother had polio. But until a college accident, Miller never imagined he would live out a similar fate. In college, he had an accident that left him a triple amputee. After, he knew he wanted to use his experience to help others. Miller went onto become a doctor and is now the executive director of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. In this next piece, he speaks with his colleague Diane Malley about the accident.

In the dining room of her San Francisco home, Maria Eitz shows off her priestly attire -- a beautiful red, embroidered stole.

It is the only accessory that distinguishes Eitz from the rest of her community. Usually, there is more separation, especially during mass when Catholic priests wear robes. Considering everything else, her wardrobe is a relatively minor deviation. The Vatican bans women from the altar. Yet Eitz is a woman who two years ago became a Catholic priest.

When someone is dying, sometimes the best medicine is not medicine at all. And sometimes what needs to be healed, is not the body, but the mind. That is the kind of caretaking that Paul Kelley takes pride in doing. When Kelley began his career as a hospice worker in 1983, he knew instantly that he had found his calling.

"I can't fix my toilet at home, I can't fix the car, I can't do bookkeeping, I can't do computers. But I can be with someone who is dying, for some reason."

It’s Halloween! Trick or treating, and parties are the usual ways to celebrate, but a group of Wiccans in San Jose have a different idea, according to the San Jose Mercury News. They’re honoring Samhain, “a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year.”

The biggest news in religion this week was the Vatican’s dramatic shift on how it views gay people, unmarried couples who live together and those who have divorced. The Los Angeles Times reports that Vatican expert John Thavis called it no less than an “earthquake.” That IS A metaphor often used by news media, but it was a huge departure from the staunch conservatism that has dominated the Catholic church.

It’s intense in a sweat lodge. You enter a round structure, about five feet high at the center, and sit down on the earthen floor. Then the flap of heavy blankets closes and you’re left in utter darkness. Moments later, the leader pours water over hot, volcanic rocks. Like a sauna, thick steam rises and spreads.

Dezi Gallegos is a playwright who is searching for God. He's only 18 years old, but says he's already lived through numerous tough life experiences that led to him asking the question: is there a loving God? And if so, why are these bad things – plagues, he calls them – happening to me and my family?

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to 250,000 Muslims. They work in tech, medicine, commerce, the service industry. And if you drive two hours north of San Francisco, to Yuba City, you’d find a Muslim farming community that’s been there for nearly a century. Pakistani immigrants made their way to Yuba City in the 1920s and today grow almonds, oranges, alfalfa, and prunes. Lots of prunes. The community was living peacefully until one fateful day in 1994, when disaster struck. Oakland filmmaker David Washburn’s new film An American Mosque tells their story. I spoke to Washburn about making the film.